A typical working environment for a computing device includes a network, or some other form of connectivity, that the computing device uses to share and acquire information. The computing device typically connects to one or more other computing devices to access services, navigate the Web, send and receive e-mail, and the like. One such scenario involves the computing device connecting to a server. However, a connection between the computing device and server can sometimes encounter problems and/or failures. To aid in failure analysis, the computing device and/or the server can maintain a log that describes what actions have transpired during the connection, what steps occurred during an attempt to connect, what steps occurred during a disconnect, etc.
Since a server and computing device have finite memory space, measures are taken to balance how much information the log retains. In some cases, when logging is continuously on, the log may maintain a rolling window of information (i.e. as new information gets pushed into the log, old information gets pushed out.) With a rolling window, the amount of information contained within the log stays the same, but is constantly updating. Thus, after a certain amount of time, information is lost. In other cases, logging may only start when notification occurs, for example, when manually started and/or when triggered. However, if a problem is not noticed at the time of failure, there can be a delay in when logging is started, subsequently causing pertinent information to be lost.